Some membership levels just don’t belong on your website. A comped staff level, a reciprocal-only tier, a legacy rate you honor for a handful of long-time members, a corporate level that only exists because of a signed agreement, a board level priced for a conversation rather than a click. Altru needs these levels to exist so the desk and the membership office can sell and renew them. You just don’t want a stranger finding them on the join page.
This article covers how to keep specific levels off your online membership form, what each approach costs you elsewhere in Altru, and how to check your work before a member finds the gap for you.
Start by mapping what the form actually shows
Before changing anything, open your live membership web form in a private browser window and list every level a visitor can choose. Then compare it to the full list of levels in your membership programs. You’re looking for three things:
- Levels that appear online but shouldn’t.
- Levels that should appear online but don’t (it happens, usually after someone adds a new level and forgets the form).
- Whether the form offers renewals as well as new joins, and whether a renewing member sees a different set of choices.
Write the list down. You’ll need it again at the end.
Option 1: Check the membership form’s own settings first
The membership part of Altru’s web forms has configuration for which membership programs and levels it presents. How granular that control is can depend on how your programs are structured and on your Altru version, so the honest advice is: open the form configuration in a sandbox or a copy of the form and see whether you can deselect individual levels. If you can, that’s the cleanest fix, because nothing changes for desk sales or renewals entered by staff.
If the setting only works at the program level, or you can’t tell what it will do to existing members renewing online, ask Blackbaud support to confirm before you change the live form. A wrong guess here tends to show up as a member who can’t renew online and calls in annoyed.
Option 2: Move private levels into their own program
When form controls are program-wide, the common workaround is structural. Put the levels you want public in one membership program and the private ones (staff, reciprocal, corporate, legacy) in another. Then the web form only offers the public program.
Weigh this carefully before you do it:
- Reporting changes. Membership counts, renewal rates, and any query that filters by program will now split across two programs. Update saved queries and dashboards so totals still add up.
- Upgrades and downgrades. Moving a member between levels in different programs may not behave the same as moving within one program. Test an upgrade path in a sandbox before committing.
- Benefits and card printing. Anything keyed to the program (benefits, card templates, acknowledgment letters) needs to be set up on the new program too.
This is more work up front, but it’s durable. Once private levels live in their own program, nobody has to remember to hide them again.
Option 3: Retire levels you no longer sell
Some levels shouldn’t be on the website because they shouldn’t be sold to anyone new. A grandfathered rate is the usual example. If no one new should ever join at that level, consider marking it inactive or ending it for new sales rather than just hiding it from the web.
Be clear about what happens to the people already in it. Confirm in a sandbox whether existing members on an inactive level can still renew, and whether staff can still process that renewal at the desk. If the answer is no, you may need to move those members to a current level with a note on their record explaining the honored price.
Option 4: Separate forms for separate audiences
Some organizations want a level hidden from the public but still available online to a specific group, such as employees of a corporate partner or members of a reciprocal network. Rather than one form that does everything, build a second membership form that offers only that level and share its link directly with the group. Leave it out of your site navigation and sitemap.
Understand that an unlisted page is not a locked page. Anyone with the link can use it. If eligibility actually matters, have staff verify it after the fact (a simple query of new memberships at that level each week works) or keep that level desk-only.
Verify before you call it done
- Reload the public form in a private browser window and compare it against the list you made at the start.
- Test a renewal as an existing member on a level you hid, so you know what that person experiences online.
- Have desk staff ring up one of the hidden levels to confirm they still can.
- Run your membership counts by level and program and check that totals match last month’s numbers.
When the web form itself is the limitation
If you find yourself restructuring programs just to control what one web page shows, that’s a sign the form is doing the deciding instead of you. Social Good’s Checkouts replaces Altru web forms with a branded, mobile-friendly checkout for memberships, tickets, and donations, with the data written back to Altru. Some teams use it so the online join experience is designed around what they want to sell, while their membership programs stay organized around how they actually run membership.
Quick answers
Will hiding a level online remove it from members who already have it?
Changing what the web form displays shouldn’t touch existing membership records. Making a level inactive is a different action, so check its effect on renewals before you do it.
Can I hide a level by setting its price very high?
Please don’t. It still appears, it confuses visitors, and someone will eventually buy it.
